A low-cost model for engineering services?

Just like manufacturing, professions such as engineering have to reshape their way of working to become more efficient and make labour costs less a part of the equation when it comes to bidding for work, Steve Nye says.

“Whether we end up with engineers that look more like manufacturing facilities, we will break down work tasks in a different way in the future,” the managing director for government and infrastructure in the Asia Pacific for engineering consultancy MWH says. “That’s part of the shift that has to take place.”

He has bold ideas for the extra efficiency that can be gained by codifying tasks that might have been locked away inside senior employees’ heads and sharing them out among cheaper staff members.

“Now we want to do it for 50 hours but give the client 100 hours’ outcome because we were able to reuse intellectual property. That’s what we’re grappling with as a company.”

Not only does he want to change the way an industry works, but he wants to add more jargon to it as well.

“We should stop calling ourselves ‘engineers’ and start calling ourselves ‘solutioneers’!” he says, only half joking.

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